Designers are frequently embarrassed by the concessions they make to reality. We try hard to follow the idealized, user-centric processes we’ve read about in books and heard about at conferences, but getting design solutions through organizations requires negotiation and frequently radical adjustments. It can leave even the best designers feeling like imposters.
We aren’t faking it, it’s just that design process is a sloppy thing in the real world. Stakeholder demands don’t always match the organization’s rhetoric about supporting users. Collaboration adds expertise, but sometimes at the expense of innovation. Even the best organizations are inherently inflexible, often not nimble enough to implement sophisticated design solutions.
This talk will provide you with five specific, actionable tactics to shore up design processes ravaged by the vagaries of your organization. You will gain the tools necessary for managing problematic stakeholders; analyzing your organization’s design tolerance; and defining problems in ways that design can successfully address.
I’m currently working with the U.S. Digital Service to overhaul how the government supports people who want to become U.S. citizens. I’m always looking for opportunities to help clients with all aspects of design, including retooling their organizations in order to be able to deliver outstanding design solutions.
